New patterns of real estate market consumption and acquiring companies strategies in medium-sized cities: an analysis focused on Londrina, São José do Rio Preto and Ribeirão Preto

• Grant number: 14/19687-9
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Post-Doctoral
• Effective date (Start): December 01, 2014
• Effective date (End): July 31, 2016
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Geography - Human Geography
• Principal Investigator: Maria Encarnação Beltrão Sposito
• Grantee: Hélio Carlos Miranda de Oliveira
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia (FCT). Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP). Campus de Presidente Prudente. Presidente Prudente , SP, Brazil
• Associated research grant: 11/20155-3 - Socio-economic cohesion and contemporary spatial practices: cities of medium size and consumption, AP.TEM

Abstract

Housing is considered basic and indispensable to life in city, and residence is usually the largest family investment throughout his life, especially for the middle and lower classes in Brazil. In addition, real estate has some particular characteristics because it demands a certain location, which is unrepeatable as a result of continuous actions of urban space structuring. Housing economics, synthesized by actions of the real estate agents, acts constantly creating new products - consequently new spaces - with several differences according to target. This industry increasingly appropriates kwow-how from marketing and advertising, as a way to ensure the success of their enterprises and promoting and spreading an idea in which optimal patterns of quality of life are the reference, mainly related to safety, environment contact, family life etc. Companies had coming through an intense period of housing production and marketing on the current scenario of Brazil economy, motivated in particular by the large supply of mortgage loans, where the State is the main promoter. As a result, new groups of consumers have been incorporated to these market, providing a greater diversification in releases. In addition to abundant loans, the opening of the companies' capital on stock market has restructured their organization and their performance on cities, increasing the complexity of such processes and articulating such issues to other geographical scales beyond the local. From these general conditions, in this research subproject we aim to reference and analyze the synthesized picture above, focusing on three medium-sized cities (Londrina, São José do Rio Preto and Ribeirão Preto), which features a number of special characteristics if compared to metropolitan areas, requiring greater attention and research according to the proposal of the larger project which this one belongs, regarding new process of production and consumption of urban space.